


Between the Sinners and the Saints

by pikestaff (pikaslew)



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II
Genre: Anders Needs a Hug, Canonical Character Death, Explicit Language, M/M, Not Really A Happy Ending, Sad, Some mentions of the Chantry and Templars being awful, Starts out fluffy but gets sad real quick, Tranquility, but nothing overly graphic, fuck the chantry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-17
Updated: 2016-12-17
Packaged: 2018-09-09 06:57:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,679
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8880301
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pikaslew/pseuds/pikestaff
Summary: Anders falls in love and it ends badly.  He should've known that mages don't get happy endings.The first chapter was originally posted on tumblr for Kandersgiving as a fluffy one-shot.  Then I felt angsty and decided to turn it into an actual thing.  (The second half is decidedly... not as fluffy.)





	1. Tell Them To Send Cats

“Excuse me, are you Karl?”

Karl looked up from his books at his desk. The mage standing in front of him was skinny and young and his robes looked a bit too big on him and his blonde hair had been hastily drawn back in a tie to keep it out of his face. He was practically bouncing on his feet and there was a gleam in his eyes.

“I am,” said Karl.

“Oh! Good, because I was getting a little tired of running around. Listen, you’re in charge of the dormitories on this floor, yes?”

“…yes,” said Karl. He was getting the feeling that the apprentice in front of him was not about to make a normal request.

“Well, I’d like to lodge a complaint,” said the mage.

“A complaint?”

“Yes. There are mice, just… _everywhere_. Everywhere, all over in my dormitory. Little ones, big ones, and they just. They shit all over the place too, you know?” The mage was gesticulating as he spoke and he was having a tough time keeping a straight face. Oh, he was trying his best, but Karl could tell anyway. He’d dealt with far too many pranksters over the last few months and he’d become an expert at reading apprentices’ faces.

“Well. I’ll let someone know,” said Karl.

“Tell them to send the cats,” the apprentice suggested before he left. He was still bouncing.

\---

Karl headed to the dormitory a few hours later when it was empty to evaluate the situation himself. Sure enough, there were signs of mice living in the walls. This was nothing new, because the tower was old and filled with cracks and crevices that made perfect homes for a variety of unwelcome residents. But these mice seemed to be particularly bold, if the tracks and debris they left behind all over the floor were any indication.

…there were also bits of cheese scattered around the floor.

Hmm.

\---

Over the next few days, Karl kept a curious eye on the young apprentice that had talked to him. His name was Anders, he learned. He was also always getting in trouble, he learned. Oh, and Anders kept sneaking into the dormitory after lunch. He’d have something in his hand and he would disappear into the dormitory for a few minutes and then emerge looking as innocent as possible. Karl made a mental note of this but didn’t do anything about it until Anders came and approached him again about a week later.

“So! Karl,” said Anders jovially. “We in my dormitory were wondering if you had any updates on the cat situation yet. I mean, the mouse situation.”

“Everyone in your dormitory is wondering that?” Karl asked.

“Oh yes. Everyone. We’ve made a coalition. Mages Against Mice.”

“I see,” said Karl. He leaned back in his chair. “And what is the Mages Against Mice official stance on you sneaking cheese into your room?”

“Ahhh!” Anders grinned and clucked his tongue and pointed at Karl. “You know, that’s confidential.”

Karl smiled. Genuinely. He liked this guy. “Confidential. Got it. Unfortunately I uh, am going to have to ask you to stop. I mean, no offense. But I kind of have to do my job, or I get stuck cleaning the latrines.”

He’d felt bad about saying this, but he felt worse when Anders’ face melted. “Yeah, I understand,” Anders said. He stood there awkwardly for a moment and scratched the back of his neck. “Hey, can I ask you something?” he asked suddenly.

“Sure,” said Karl.

“Do you ever… I mean. You’ve been here longer than me. Do you ever think about how much of your life you’ve spent in this building and get depressed?”

The question was so genuine, so personal, that it caught Karl off guard. He had to gather his thoughts for a moment before he answered, truthfully, “Sometimes.”

Anders nodded and looked away. “Sorry,” he said. “But sometimes I wonder if it’s just me. It’s nice to know it’s not.” He turned and left. Karl watched him go.

\---

The next morning Anders woke and rolled over groggily in his cot to see– Mister Wiggums, the tower’s best mouser, happily curled up next to him.

Anders sat up with a start and the sudden movement disturbed Mister Wiggums, who stretched and meowed in his sleep. There was a little rolled up note attached to the cat’s collar. Anders reached out and plucked it away and unrolled it. “You’re welcome,” it said.

Anders grinned. Mission accomplished.


	2. And Every Breath We Drew Was Hallelujah

It was all very quick when it happened.

Oh, the whole “liking Karl” bit wasn’t fast. No, that part was excruciatingly slow. Realizing over the course of several long weeks that he _liked_ him, a lot, was so slow that it was painful and left a physical ache in Anders’ chest. He’d had crushes before, yes. Several of them, in fact. Crushes weren’t exactly a new thing. But this was different. This was more than “he gives me butterflies when he looks at me,” this was “he’s going to kill me if he looks at me but he’s also going to kill me if he _doesn’t_ look at me oh Maker please, Maker if you’re up there deliver me from this torment.”

They were in the library and Anders was pretending to sift through books while Karl was nearby studying at a desk. Anders kept glancing back at him, and every so often Karl would look up at him and smile, and _shit shit shit_ and Anders would turn bright red and bury his nose in a book again and wonder if he was going to drop dead right there. He was, right? He was going to drop dead, right there in the library. Here Lies Anders, Apprentice Mage, Devoted Friend, Shuffled Off This Mortal Coil Because a Cute Boy Looked at Him.

He decided then that if he wasn’t going to die, the second best course of action would be to leave the room, so he did. He picked a random book off the shelf and then went back to the dormitory, which was blissfully empty, and he sat down and read. Well. He didn’t really read, because he wasn’t paying attention to the book at all, and was instead thinking about Karl and and his stupid cute smile and his stupid cute hair and and and…

“Anders?”

It was Karl. Leaning against the doorway and looking at him.

“K- Karl!” Anders just about spat the name out. “I uh… sorry… was I not supposed to be in here? I can move, I can—”

Anders was already halfway off the chair when Karl laughed warmly. “You’re fine,” he said. “I was actually wondering if maybe I could join you? It was getting busy in the library.”

 _He actually wants to kill me._ “Oh! Oh, no, not at all— I mean, wait, yes. Yes! That’s what I meant.”

As Anders stammered, Karl pushed a chair up to the desk and sat, and finally Anders sat down next to him. Maker, but he was gorgeous, with just a shadow of stubble across his chin and eyes that held a deep intelligence. _Okay, calm down_ , Anders told himself. _He just wants to study with you._ And they did study, quietly, for a time. Well, Anders assumed that Karl was studying. He, himself, was working out complex math problems in his head to try to determine what percentage of a chance he had with Karl. He started at 100% and then deducted 50% because Karl was out of his league and then deducted another 50% because they were mages and mages didn’t have relationships, they just had flings. Then he realized he was at 0%, and he didn’t like that very much, so he decided to add 10% back to the total because Karl was nice to him which meant that _maybe_ he liked him, and then he added another cautious 5% because they could maybe have a secret relationship. So that totaled up to about—

“Anders,” said Karl suddenly, rousing him from his thoughts. “I, uh… I actually… wanted to talk to you about something.” He was nervous and reached a hand up to scratch his head. “I… oh Maker. There’s no easy way to say this. You don’t… like men, do you?”

Oh shit. He’d forgotten to put that into his calculations. _Of course he doesn’t like me in that way, that’s -100% right there, and—_

But Karl continued, “Because I do. Like men, I mean.”

_Wait, what?_

“Really?” Anders scolded himself inwardly because that word came out more much eagerly than he meant it to, and quickly he tried to salvage the situation. “I mean. I like everyone. Boys… girls…” _You…_

“Not picky?” Karl looked at him with a half-smile.

Anders felt his heart melt. “Well, I mean. What you are doesn’t matter, so long as…” his voice trailed away. He looked at Karl and saw the way that Karl was looking at him and oh… _oh._ Oh, _that’s_ why he’d asked.

“Anders?” said Karl. He was smiling.

And that’s when things got very fast. They kissed, tentatively at first, then passionately, and at some point they managed to get themselves from the desk to Anders’ bed and here they kissed some more. It wasn’t Anders’ first kiss. Oh no, not by a long shot. He’d kissed his fair share of cute boys and cute girls alike over the past couple of years. But this was different. This filled his heart with something light and buoyant, something that sparked through his chest and manifested itself in the fingers he ran through Karl’s hair and the breathy kisses he left on his neck. Anders was in the middle of biting down on Karl’s earlobe when he stopped him, suddenly, and Anders pulled away.

“Not here,” said Karl. “Not now.”

Of course. They weren’t private. The door to the dormitory was wide open, as it always was. Anyone could walk in on them.

“Alright then, Mister In-Charge-Of-The-Dormitories,” said Anders with a grin. He was sitting straddled atop Karl, and he poked his chest with a finger a couple of times. “You arrange a better time, then.”

“I will,” said Karl. He was grinning too, lopsidedly, and his hair was tousled, and Anders couldn’t resist and dove in for one last kiss.


	3. You Left The Sweetest Taste In My Mouth

Anders couldn’t tell if there was a ground or not. He thought he could maybe feel it, beneath the mist and the smoke, but he wasn’t going to check. The world was misty and green. Where was he? The Fade? This was the Fade. It had to be. His Harrowing— but hadn’t he just done that? Hadn’t he just defeated the demon that had tried to possess him? Hadn’t he just—

And the tentative ground beneath his feet broke and he fell.

\---

He woke up with a start, his breath heavy. There was a dull ache in his forehead and it took him a moment to realize where he was. The dormitory. The Circle. Right. It had been a dream. Someone was holding his hand. “Karl?”

His vision was blurry but he could see Karl smiling at him, his eyes crinkling at the corners. “You passed,” he said. “Your Harrowing. You passed.”

It was coming back to Anders now. The treacherous terrain, the smirking demons, but it was over, it was done, and—

He sat up and hugged Karl, tightly, clinging to his back for dear life. Karl clung back and whispered to him “I knew you would. But— I couldn’t help but worry anyway.”

“You don’t have to worry about little old me,” Anders chuckled.

Karl turned his head towards him and they looked into each others' eyes. And there was a phrase that was on the tip of Anders’ tongue but he didn’t say it. Of course he didn’t say it. Saying it would make it real, and that would surely be bad luck. They’d done well enough dodging the templars so far. Anders didn’t want to jinx it. He took comfort in the idea that he was sure Karl _knew_ , and he held him close again.

\---

It was all for naught. The templars found out anyway. Those bastards, those _bastards_ found out and they took Karl, they took him from him and transferred him to the Kirkwall Circle.

Anders was angry. He was _angry_. This was the last straw. This wasn’t right. Nothing those blighted templars ever did was right. How _dare_ they take him from him. He was trembling as he gathered his few things that night and quietly left, using an emergency exit method he’d saved up for a time like this.

He was buying passage to Kirkwall when they found him and dragged him back, beating him most of the way.

No matter. He’d try again. He’d try again and again until he and Karl were reunited, that he swore. Nothing would stop him. He was a storm, a fury, and there was nothing that would stand in his way.

A few weeks later he made off again. And they dragged him back, again.

But this time was different, because this time when he was thrown into the dungeon they didn’t take him back out.

It was dark. Maker, how he hated the dark.

Days stretched into weeks. Weeks stretched into months. Or something like that. Anders wasn’t sure, because he had lost track of all time completely, and his mind was riddled with demons, some of which were real and would tempt him with all kinds of promises before he’d chase them away with sheer force of will alone.

Mister Wiggums came by, sometimes. Mister Wiggums, the entire catalyst for the reason that Anders and Karl had met in the first place. Anders would pet him, and smile, and think back to the note he’d found attached to his collar. He squeezed his eyes shut. Tears didn’t come because he’d run out of them long ago. Mister Wiggums licked his face anyway.

An entire year passed before he finally was dragged, filthy and weak, out of confinement. His eyes hurt and his ears rang just from the everyday sights and sounds of the Circle. He spent the bulk of the next week in bed, clutching a few frantic letters from Karl, who hadn’t heard from him in a year and desperately wanted to know if he was alright. Mister Wiggums visited him here in bed, too, and by the end of the week Anders’ eyes were hard as he petted the cat. The templars thought they’d broken him. They hadn’t.

\---

His next and final escape from the Circle didn’t quite go the way he planned it to. He had been recaptured, again, but things had stalled in Amaranthine and before he really knew what was going on he had been recruited into the Grey Wardens, of all things. And for a few months, he actually felt alive. He was outside, he had friends, he had a _cat!_ , and he was actually encouraged to use his magic and his healing skills to destroy monsters and help people. The Warden-Commander was even willing to help him attempt to track down his phylactery, a move which had ultimately failed, but the fact that someone actually wanted to help him was mind-boggling. He felt better than he had in a while. Karl was on his mind, of course. Karl was always on his mind. They wrote each other letters, when they could. Karl seemed to be doing alright, or so he said, and Anders would regale him with stories of his time in the Wardens and half-joke about breaking Karl out so he could join them. “I’ll figure out a way to get to you eventually,” he promised in his letters. And Karl would write back and tell him that things in Kirkwall were strained but tolerable, for the moment, and add that at least this had all gone down after their Harrowings so at least they didn’t have to worry about the threat of Tranquility anymore.

So Anders waited and bided his time.

He knew it was time when the letters from Karl got more frantic.

He knew it was time when one of his friends, a fade Spirit named Justice, told him he could help him.

And so once again, Anders was on the run.


	4. Life Doesn't Discriminate

The day that it happened started just like any other day. Anders was healing the sick and plotting out a way to get into the Gallows undetected and get to Karl. The letters from Karl had recently stopped coming, and this had Anders terrified. Had something changed? Had the templars figured out what they were up to?

A couple of people he had never seen before showed up in the clinic that day, led by someone named Hawke. These people wanted some maps into the Deep Roads for whatever Maker-forsaken reason they had, and Anders was ready to shrug it off when he realized that these people were not any ordinary people and that’s when he asked them to help in exchange for his maps. With backup, he could get to Karl. And once Karl was out, they could make plans for what to do next.

\---

That night, Anders met with Hawke and the others outside the Chantry. His heart was pounding, although he didn’t let it show. Was Karl alright? He’d seen him go in from a distance. He had to be alright. He desperately hoped he was alright. “When you see Karl, just let me talk to him,” Anders told Hawke as they headed inside the building. He’d just need a few brief minutes to plan and then they could make their escape. Things would be different this time. They could be together and there wouldn’t be templars to tear them apart. He could finally tell him what he’d been too scared to tell him all along, that he loved…

“Karl?”

“I know you too well, Anders. I knew you would never give up.”

…what?

“What’s wrong? Why are you talking like…”

Karl turned, and the sunburst on his forehead seared itself into Anders’ soul. “I was too rebellious, like you. The templars knew I had to be… made an example of.”

“No,” said Anders. This wasn’t real. This couldn’t be real. _The Chantry can’t make Harrowed mages tranquil. The Chantry can’t make Harrowed mages tranquil. The Chantry can’t…_

Karl was still talking, but Anders couldn’t hear him, couldn’t hear him through the blood pounding in his ears and Justice’s fury and his own anger, metallic and hot, and then he turned and the templars were there and—

“No!” Anders fell to his knees; clutched his head. It was too much, it was all too much. And then he was on his feet, all white fire and crackling lightning— _“You will never take another mage as you took him!”_

The battle was quick and intense and Anders wasn’t aware of himself for most of it. Hawke and the others were helping him, he could barely make that part out, but his mind was aflame, his senses heightened, and then it was over and the bodies of those wretched templars were at his feet, and—

“I… Anders? What did you do?”

Karl’s voice brought him back down into reality, anchoring him. Anders turned.

“It’s like you brought a piece of the Fade back into this world,” said Karl. His eyes were wide. He was whole again. He was himself again. “I had already forgotten what that feels like…”

Anders approached him. Desperation was in his voice when he spoke. “Karl? What happened? How did the templars get you?”

“The templars here are far more vigilant than in Ferelden,” Karl explained. “They found a letter I was writing you. You cannot imagine it, Anders. All the color, all the music in the world… gone. Please— kill me before I forget again. I don’t know how you brought it back but it’s fading—”

“Karl… no…”

“I would rather die a mage than live as a templar puppet,” Karl spat. “Please…”

Anders shut his eyes and looked down. “I got here too late,” he said softly. “I’m sorry, Karl. I’m…”

Karl was getting frantic. “Now! It’s fading! I…” and then his panic was replaced by that sickening, unsettling calmness that he’d had before. “Why do you look at me like that?”

And with that, it was over. Karl wasn’t coming back. He may has well have already been dead.

Anders released the breath he didn't realize he'd been holding. He walked up to Karl. Karl looked at him out of empty eyes, eyes that were now devoid of any of the soul and intelligence Anders had once fallen for years ago. They looked at each other, briefly, and then Anders reached out his left arm and pulled Karl close to him one last time. He pressed his lips to that damned sunburst on his forehead. _I never told him I loved him._

_He knew._

“Goodbye,” he said, and after a swift motion with his right hand Karl was gone, lifeless in his arms.

“We should go,” he told the others as he walked off without looking behind him. “Before more templars come.”

\---

He was alone for a few moments before Hawke and the others caught up to him. It was quiet outside. Kirkwall was asleep, for once. Anders had his eyes shut as he tried to absorb everything that had just happened. He shouldn’t have let himself fall in love. Mages don’t fall in love. He should have never gotten his hopes up.

He felt Justice stir in the back of his mind. _We won’t let it happen again_ , he heard the spirit whisper to him.

Anders heard a noise behind him and turned to see the others approaching, and even though he knew what Justice had been talking about, his mind turned to something entirely different when he saw Hawke, with eyes burning like fire, and felt that familiar tug in his heart before realizing that that was something he could never have.

_No_ , he agreed silently. _We won’t let it happen again._

**Author's Note:**

> I'm on tumblr! - http://pikestaff.tumblr.com


End file.
